[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 11:30 pm — Library Center Theatre]

The biggest surprise surrounding and involving our film The Woman is how shocked people are by it. When you make a film, you live with it day in and day out for months and years. You get intimate with it. You get used to it. It becomes a dear and familiar friend. Once you’re comfortable enough with it, you share it and the audience response is never exactly how you pictured it. It’s always so much more. I’ve shown this film privately to very few people in preparation for the festival and have witnessed some classic reactions. One young lady’s response was to stare at the floor for a good hour while a handful of others tried to understand and dissect it. She had nothing to say, her skin was bloodless, she couldn’t make eye contact, she was inside her head, trying to compute what she just witnessed. It’s not only surprising when that sort of thing happens, it’s just plain beautiful.